Away Games: Cornwall's Bisson beginning NCAA career at Maine

Ottawa Jr. Senators assistant captain Adrien Bisson, of Cornwall, with his opportunity to hoist the Bogart Cup at the end of the CCHL playoffs. Photo on Sunday, April 21, 2019, in Carleton Place, Ont. Robert Lefebvre/Special to the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia NetworkRobert Lefebvre / Robert Lefebvre/Special to the Standard-Freeholder

The NCAA Division I hockey season is just around the corner, and for Cornwall’s Adrien Bisson, it’ll be the beginning of a new chapter in his hockey career.

Bisson, who graduated from the Ottawa Jr. Senators’ roster in the spring after another trip to the RBC Royal Bank nationals, will be a freshman defenseman with the University of Maine Black Bears in Orono.

Ticket flex plans for the 2019-20 Black Bears campaign recently went on sale, and the first game is about a month away, with Maine travelling to southern New England to play a Hockey East contest at Providence College on Oct. 5.

The Black Bears are at home the next afternoon, playing an exhibition game against the University of New Brunswick Reds.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to get to the next level,” Bisson told the Standard-Freeholder last spring while the Jr. Senators were marching toward the CCHL title and an eventual Fred Page Cup crown. “When you go to a campus it’s about getting a feeling – you’re going to be spending four years there.”

Maine felt like a great fit during a spring visit by Bisson, and it’s a Black Bears squad that graduated several blueliners, which could give the former CMHA player an opportunity to have an immediate impact. Maine looks to be solid up front, with six of its top 10 scorers from last year returning.

The Black Bears’ schedule includes 24 Hockey East games, as well as a couple of home contests in mid-October against the University of Alaska Anchorage (WCHA).

In late November, the Black Bears will play very close to Cornwall. They’ll be in Canton, N.Y., for games on Nov. 29-30 against the St. Lawrence Saints (ECAC).

Maine has a friendly home schedule over the second half of the campaign, with eight of its last nine games, beginning in late January, to be played at the Alfond Sports Arena.

The final home game is March 6 against Providence, and Hockey East quarterfinal action starts Mar. 13.

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Ingleside’s Kristy Pidgeon will be heading into her third (junior) year at Clarkson in Potsdam, N.Y.

Clarkson starts its season in three weeks, with a home-and-home series against the Syracuse Orange, Sept. 27-28.

Clarkson’s longest trip comes early in the campaign, with games at the University of Minnesota Duluth on Oct. 4-5.

Pidgeon in her sophomore campaign skated in 36 of 40 games, and the forward scored four times and added four assists for eight points. Pidgeon in her freshman year played in 40 games and helped the Golden Knights win the NCAA National Championship title.

He’s had to deal with injury adversity much of his MLB career – and before it even began.

And while the latest setback is a huge one, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jameson Taillon remains optimistic, following a second Tommy John surgery two weeks ago that will have him sidelined until the 2021 season, when he’s 29.

Feeling as driven as ever! I’m going to attack this rehab with everything I’ve got, and I will be back. My motivation throughout this process isn’t to prove doubters wrong, but instead to prove everyone that remains… https://t.co/72CVdaFASk

“Feeling as driven as ever! I’m going to attack this rehab with everything I’ve got, and I will be back,” Taillon wrote on Twitter recently.

Taillon is an MLB veteran who has family in the Cornwall and St. Andrews West area. In April, he was the Pirates opening day starter.

In mid-August he underwent right flexor tendon repair surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. During the procedure, it was determined Taillon also required ulnar collateral ligament revision surgery.

The outcome was considered a possibility heading into surgery, but a worst-case scenario.

“He was shocked when he heard the news, as were we,’’ Pirates pitcher Trevor Williams said.

The right-hander first underwent Tommy John surgery in the spring of 2014, when he was considered to be close to earning a spot in the majors.

The U SPORTS ninth-ranked Ottawa Gee-Gees football team opened the 2019 season last Sunday with a tough assignment in Hamilton.

Ottawa took on perennial powerhouse McMaster, and the sixth-ranked Marauders recorded a 35-22 win.

The Gee-Gees roster includes fourth-year veteran defensive back Alex Douglas, and first-year linebacker Joseph DiStefano. Douglas, a former quarterback at Cornwall Collegiate, is enrolled in general studies.

DiStefano, a Holy Trinity graduate, is studying in the criminology program.

Douglas was one of three Gee-Gees players selected to the U SPORTS East-West Bowl in the spring, held at Carleton University.

The Gee-Gees home opener is against Queen’s on Saturday, with a 1 p.m. kickoff.